Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Birmingham is, shall we say, no Palm Springs. Traditional is the thing around here, and many MCM homes have been altered or disguised with the trappings of French Country or Old World. But there are still some great examples here. You just have to know where to look. And since there are few "tracts" here like you see out west, I think there are probably a lot of isolated MCM owners in various parts of town. I'm hoping this blog will be the start of a "gathering place" or network.

I started in my old neighborhood, Crestwood. This is a great, progressive, city neighborhood. Lots of young professionals, artists, etc. The north side of Crestwood has a lot of 1920s homes. My former home (ain't it cute? but the stump/stonehenge thing in the front yard was actually a nice River Birch when I lived there):

The houses in Crestwood get newer street by street as you get closer to Red Mountain. 1920s near my old house, then 1940s cottages, then 1950s ranches and MCMs, and up on the side of the mountain, 1960s/70s ranches.

These two are next door to one another, clearly built by the same builder. They are surrounded by traditional ranches:

Here is a particularly nice ranch:

A few post-and-beam beauties:

One of my favorites. But it looked nicer the last time I saw it, with a great spherical fountain out front. It must have changed hands:

This is a great ranch that spreads over 2 or 3 lots. I couldn't even get the entire house in one shot:

Adjacent to Crestwood is Forest Park and there are a few nice mods here. This one is amazing, but hard to see because of the trees. First the front, then the side:

I know that it is January and all, but we did get the giant tree set up. After some frustrating diagnostic work involving one of those new little guns designed to magically make the lights work on the tree, it pretty much all lit up.